Reflecting Back on
9/11 and How Sports Helped Us Heal
September 11, 2001 is a day that America will never forget.
The images and sounds of that day will never leave us and will always find
their way back to us no matter how much we try to forget. Here in New York it
was especially hard because on top of everything, we either knew someone
directly or through someone else that was affected by the losses of that day.
The terrorists were unable to break us or our spirits but by God they bent them
as much as was possible.
Sports played a huge role in that bend but don’t break
process because it provided an outlet and an escape from everything that was
running through our minds day in and day out. When Mike Piazza hit the home run
against Atlanta at Shea Stadium it was the first opportunity for all of us, as
both New Yorkers and Americans to stand up and cheer. For that brief moment all
was forgotten and everything went back to normal. Then the Yankees went on to
play in possibly the greatest World Series of all time, and one that as a
diehard Yankee fan, I’m still bitter they lost.
I’m not sure closure is a word that could ever be used when
talking about or thinking about 9/11 but the night that Seal Team 6 captured
and killed Osama Bin Laden may be as close as we were going to get. Hearing the
fans in Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia cheering “USA! USA!” as they all got
word of the events on their smart phones is another image we will not soon
forget. We got our revenge and even though it wouldn’t bring our loved ones
back, it helped us recover that much more.
Everyone who died on 9/11 or as a direct result of it in war
is far more courageous than the rest of us and their names and memories will
live on forever. We are the greatest and toughest nation in the world and
always will be, no matter what terrorists, whether they be foreign or domestic,
try to do. We will always be the land of the free because we are the home of
the brave. God Bless America.
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